This collection focuses on icons of the Beat generation as well as lesser known figures, including Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, John Clellon Holmes, Herbert Huncke, LeRoi Jones (Imamu Amiri Baraka), Ted Joans and Bob Kaufman. It also includes an exploration of the role of women and gender through the work of writers such as Carolyn Cassady and Bonnie Bremser. Beat Generation Writers uncovers the key influences on the movement, such as Indian and Buddhist philosophy, the 1960s counterculture, the poetry of Emerson and Whitman, European trends, and the Modernist tradition.